Dr Lisa Walters

Senior Lecturer in Women's Writing

School of Communication and Arts

+61 7 336 53216

l.walters@uq.edu.au

Researcher biography

Dr Walters has published on Cavendish, Shakespeare, Milton, and Renaissance women in relation to gender, science, philosophy, sexuality and political thought. She welcomes research proposals relating to these topics.

She is author of Margaret Cavendish: Gender, Science and Politics (Cambridge University Press, hardback 2014, paperback 2017) and is editor of The Blazing World and other Writings, Oxford World's Classics (Oxford University Press, 2025), which is the first edition to modernise the spelling and grammar of Cavendish’s prose fiction. Her co-edited volume, Margaret Cavendish: An Interdisciplinary Perspective (2022), was published by Cambridge University Press and won Co-Honorable Mention for the 2022 Collaborative Project Award from the Society for the Study of Early Modern Women and Gender.She is also co-editor of the Restoration section of the Palgrave Encyclopedia of Early Modern Women’s Writing (2021-2026); the General Editors won the 2025 Digital Scholarship, New Media, & Art Award from the Society for the Study of Early Modern Women and Gender. In addition, she is co-editor of Cavendish and Milton, which is forthcoming with Oxford University Press. Currently, she is co-editing Cavendish's Philosophy of Literature, which is under contract with Routledge.

Dr Walters is also Deputy Chair of the Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Committee for the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences (HASS) and is the Honours Thesis Coordinator for the Western Civilisation Centre.

She obtained her doctorate and masters degree from the University of Edinburgh, Scotland and her BA from the University of California Santa Cruz. Previously, she was a postdoctoral research fellow at Ghent University, Belgium. She has also held academic positions in England, America, and Scotland and was a visiting professor at Université Catholique de Lille, France. Between studies, she worked in Tokyo, Japan.

Currently, she serves on the Editorial Board of ANQ: A Quarterly Journal of Short Articles, Notes and Reviews, Anthem Press, and was President of the International Margaret Cavendish Society. She is the founder and managing editor of Margaret Cavendish: A Multidisciplinary Journal.

Books

Lisa Walters. Margaret Cavendish: Gender, Science and Politics (Cambridge University Press, hardback 2014, paperback 2017)

Lisa Walters and Brandie Siegfried, eds. Margaret Cavendish: An Interdisciplinary Perspective (Cambridge University Press, 2022).

Lisa Walters, ed. The Blazing World and other Writings, Oxford World's Classics (Oxford University Press, 2025)

Suzanne Trill, Natasha Simonova, and Lisa Walters, eds. "Restoration."Palgrave Encyclopedia of Early Modern Women's Writing (Palgrave 2020-2025).

Ann Coiro, Lara Dodds, and Lisa Walters, eds. Cavendish and Milton (Oxford University Press, forthcoming)

Daniel Whiting and Lisa Walters, eds. Cavendish's Philosophy of Literature (under contract with Routledge)

Publications

Book (1)

Book Chapters (12)

Journal Articles (24)

Conference Papers (20)

Newspaper Article (1)

Book

Walters, Lisa (2014). Margaret Cavendish: gender, science and politics. Cambridge, United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press. doi: 10.1017/cbo9781107588912

Book Chapters

Walters, Lisa and Fitzmaurice, James B. (2026). Margaret Cavendish. British and Irish literature. edited by Andrew Hadfield. Oxford, United Kingdom: Oxford University Press. doi: 10.1093/obo/9780199846719-0222

Walters, Lisa (2024). The pleasure of utopia: objects of desire, Epicureanism and gender during the Renaissance from Thomas More to Milton. Objets de désir dans la littérature et les arts de l’image. (pp. 257-272) edited by Cécile Meynard and Gérald Préher. Rennes, France: Presses universitaires de Rennes. doi: 10.4000/books.pur.197204

Walters, Lisa (2023). Margaret Cavendish 1623-1673. Literature Criticism from 1400 to 1800: Critical Discussion of the Works of Fifteenth-, Sixteenth-, Seventeenth-, and Eighteenth-Century Novelists, Poets, Playwrights, Philosophers, and Other Creative Writers. (pp. 171-177) edited by Jennifer Stock. Farmington Hills, Mi, United States: Gale.

Siegfried, Brandie R. and Walters, Lisa (2022). Introduction: the intellectual span of Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle. Margaret Cavendish: an interdisciplinary perspective. (pp. 1-16) edited by Lisa Walters and Brandie R. Siegfried. Cambridge, United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press. doi: 10.1017/9781108780780.001

Siegfried, Brandie R. and Walters, Lisa (2022). A new science for a new world: Margaret Cavendish on the question of poverty. 1650-1850: Ideas, aesthetics, and inquiries in the early modern era. (pp. 21-36) edited by Kevin L. Cope. Lewisburg, PA, United States: Bucknell University Press. doi: 10.2307/j.ctv2vt04cz.5

Miller, Naomi J. and Walters, Lisa (2021). Reframing the picture: screening early modern women for modern audiences. World-making Renaissance women. (pp. 70-86) edited by Pamela S. Hammons and Brandie R. Siegfried. Cambridge, United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press. doi: 10.1017/9781108923385.005

Walters, Lisa (2021). Jones, Katherine, Lady Ranelagh. The Palgrave encyclopedia of early modern women's writing. (pp. 1-6) edited by Patricia Pender and Rosalind Smith. Cham, Switzerland: Springer International Publishing. doi: 10.1007/978-3-030-01537-4_190-1

Walters, Lisa (2020). Epicurus and gender in the British Newcastle Circle: Charleton, Hobbes And Margaret Cavendish. A companion to the Cavendishes. (pp. 181-197) edited by Lisa Hopkins and Tom Rutter. Leeds, York, United Kingdom: Arc Humanities Press. doi: 10.2307/j.ctv22d4zg6.16

Walters, Lisa (2019). Margaret Cavendish, Poems, and Fancies (1653). Handbook of English Renaissance literature. (pp. 594-614) edited by Ingo Berensmeyer. Berlin, Germany: De Gruyter. doi: 10.1515/9783110444889-031

Walters, Lisa (2019). The philosophy and literature of childhood cognition: John Milton and Margaret Cavendish. Literary cultures and medieval and early modern childhoods. (pp. 203-218) edited by Naomi J. Miller and Diane Purkiss. Cham, Switzerland: Springer International Publishing. doi: 10.1007/978-3-030-14211-7_13

Walters, Lisa (2009). Gender subversion in the science of Margaret Cavendish. Ashgate Critical Essays on Women Writers in England, 1550-1700: Margaret Cavendish. (pp. 251-262) edited by Sara H. Mendelson. Abingdon, Oxon, United Kingdom: Routledge. doi: 10.4324/9781315264707-27

Walters, Lisa (2006). Cavendish's letters of subversion. The female wits: women and gender in restoration literature and culture. (pp. 281-294) edited by Pilar Cuder Domínguez, Zenón Luis Martínez and Juan A. Prieto Pablos. Huelva, Spain: University of Huelva.

Journal Articles

Miller, Naomi J. and Walters, Lisa (2025). Breaking the mold or embracing the market? Early modern women center stage. Philological Quarterly, 104 (1-2), 151-161.

Ferrier, Sean, Kleinert, Katja and Walters, Lisa (2024). Gonzales Coques's Portrait of a Married Couple in a Park: an incorrect identification of Margaret and William Cavendish. Notes & Queries, 71 (1), 85-92. doi: 10.1093/notesj/gjad105

Moriarty, Clare Marie and Walters, Lisa (2023). Berkeley's gland tour into speculative fiction part 2: Margaret Cavendish and Berkeley's attitudes towards women. Philosophy Compass, 18 (4) e12909. doi: 10.1111/phc3.12909

Moriarty, Clare Marie and Walters, Lisa (2023). Berkeley's gland tour into speculative fiction part 1: Homer, Descartes and Pope. Philosophy Compass, 18 (4) e12908. doi: 10.1111/phc3.12908

Ferrier, Sean and Walters, Lisa (2021). Hamlet and Lucretian anxiety. Shakespeare, 18 (2), 176-196. doi: 10.1080/17450918.2021.1981991

Walters, Lisa (2020). Margaret Cavendish, Poems and Fancies with The Animal Parliament, edited by Brandie R. Siegfried, Tempe, AZ, Iter Press & Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2018, 462 pp., $59.95 (paperback), ISBN 978-0-86698-593-2. The Seventeenth Century, 35 (2), 259-261. doi: 10.1080/0268117x.2019.1654406

Walters, Lisa (2019). A Description of the Blazing World. Sara H. Mendelson, ed.. Early Modern Women, 13 (2), 110-113. doi: 10.1353/emw.2019.0031

Walters, Lisa (2018). The Unnatural Tragedy by Margaret Cavendish. Restoration: Studies in English Literary Culture, 1660-1700, 42 (2), 135-137. doi: 10.1353/rst.2018.0010

Ferrier, Sean and Walters, Lisa (2017). Review of Cavendish, Woolf, and the Cypriot Goddess Natura by Jim Fitzmaurice, performed at the Centre of Visual Arts and Research, Nicosia, Cyprus. Early Modern Literary Studies, 19 (2).

Walters, Lisa (2016). Monstrous births and imaginations: authorship and folklore in Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Renaissance and Reformation, 39 (1), 115-146. doi: 10.33137/rr.v39i1.26545

Walters, Lisa (2015). Review of Utopian Negotiation: Aphra Behn & Margaret Cavendish, Oddvar Holmesland. Early Modern Women, 10 (1), 216-219. doi: 10.1353/emw.2015.0013

Walters, Lisa (2014). Optics and authorship in Margaret Cavendish’s Observations and The Blazing World. Viator, 45 (3), 377-393. doi: 10.1484/j.viator.5.102933

Walters, Lisa (2013). Omitted edition of Margaret Cavendish's Philosophical and Physical Opinions (1663). Notes and Queries, 60 (4), 542-545. doi: 10.1093/notesj/gjt201

Walters, Lisa (2013). Oberon and masculinity in Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream. ANQ: A Quarterly Journal of Short Articles, Notes and Reviews, 26 (3), 157-160. doi: 10.1080/0895769x.2013.779172

Walters, Elizabeth (2013). Gender and civil war politics in Margaret Cavendish’s “Assaulted and Pursued Chastity”. Early Modern Women, 8, 207-240. doi: 10.1086/emw23617851

Walters, Lisa (2010). “[N]ot subject to our sense”: Margaret Cavendish's fusion of renaissance science, magic and fairy lore. Women's Writing, 17 (3), 413-431. doi: 10.1080/09699080903162039

Burton, John, Walters, Lisa and Trill, Suzanne (2009). VIII: The Earlier Seventeenth Century: General. The Year's Work in English Studies, 88 (1), 530-552. doi: 10.1093/ywes/map012

Burton, John R. and Walters, Lisa (2008). VIII: The Earlier Seventeenth Century: General and Prose. The Year's Work in English Studies, 87 (1), 536-549. doi: 10.1093/ywes/man001

Vella Bonavita, Helen, Walters, Lisa and Trill, Suzanne (2007). VIII: The Earlier Seventeenth Century: General and Prose. The Year's Work in English Studies, 86 (1), 475-496. doi: 10.1093/ywes/mam008

Walters, Lisa (2006). Hero Chalmers. Royalist Women Writers 1650-1689. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2004. xii+228pp.. Early Modern Literary Studies.

Bonavita, Helen Vella and Walters, Lisa (2006). VIII: The Earlier Seventeenth Century: General, Women's Writing. The Year's Work in English Studies, 85 (1), 449-476. doi: 10.1093/ywes/mal008

Vella Bonavita, Helen and Walters, Lisa (2005). VIII: The Earlier Seventeenth Century: General, Prose, Women's Writing. The Year's Work in English Studies, 84 (1), 471-498. doi: 10.1093/ywes/mai008

Walters, Lisa (2004). Gender subversion in the science of Margaret Cavendish. Early Modern Literary Studies, 14.

Doelman, James and Walters, Lisa (2004). VIII The Earlier Seventeenth Century: General, Prose, Women's Writing. The Year's Work in English Studies, 83 (1), 401-431. doi: 10.1093/ywes/mah008

Conference Papers

Walters, Lisa (2025). What is Early Modern Women’s Restoration Writing?. Australia New Zealand Association for Medieval and Early Modern Studies (ANZAMEMS), Melbourne, VIC, Australia, 4-6 December 2025.

Walters, Lisa (2025). Thomas More's influence upon Margaret Cavendish. The Intellectual History Network, Brisbane, QLD, Australia, 21 September 2025.

Walters, Lisa (2025). Early Modern Poverty and Power in Cavendish's Thought. Early Modern Thought Symposium, St Lucia, QLD, Australia, 11 September 2025.

Walters, Lisa (2025). Nonsense, no-places, and violent imaginations: literary selfhood in More’s Utopia and Cavendish’s The Blazing World. Margaret Cavendish on Literature, Southampton University, United Kingdom, 10 - 12 June 2025.

Walters, Lisa (2024). “Philosophical and physical roundtable paper” and “Cavendish Style roundtable paper”. International Margaret Cavendish Society, Seville, Spain, 12-13 December 2024.

Miller, Naomi and Walters, Lisa (2024). Forgotten histories: Renaissance heroines who changed the world. Aphra Behn and her Restoration Conference, Canterbury, United Kingdom, 2-4 July 2024.

Walters, Lisa (2024). "Atoms, Politics, and Poetry: Cavendish". Thinking Women in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries, Brisbane, QLD, Australia, 3 April 2024. Brisbane, QLD, Australia: University of Queensland.

Walters, Elizabeth (2024). "Sexual honor, gender, and disciplinary shame in Shakespeare’s measure for measure". Australian and New Zealand Association for Medieval and Early Modern Studies, Christchurch, New Zealand, 8 - 11 February 2024. Crawley, WA, Australia: Australian and New Zealand Association for Medieval and Early Modern Studies.

Walters, Lisa (2023). The Ottoman Empire, Power, and Gender in The Blazing World. Political utopia, gender and science in modernity through Margaret Cavendish seminar series, Pamplona, Spain, 21 December 2023.

Walters, Lisa (2023). "'This woman, of late a slave, but now become the greatest empresse of the East': The Early Modern Ottoman Empire and The Blazing World". Early Modern Transgressive Women's Voices, Brisbane, QLD, Australia, 24 March 2023. Brisbane, QLD, Australia: University of Queensland.

Walters, Lisa (2023). Margaret Cavendish, poverty, and the working poor in early modern England. Modern Language Association 2023 Convention, San Francisco, CA, United States, 5 - 8 January 2023.

Walters, Lisa (2022). Margaret Cavendish and John Milton: rethinking seventeenth-century literature and culture, a roundtable. Renaissance Society of America Annual Conference, Virtual, 30 Nov - 3 Dec 2022. Bronx, NY, United States: The Renaissance Society of America.

Walters, Lisa (2022). "World-Making Renaissance Women" roundtable. Women, Gender, and Culture in the Early Modern World seminar series, Cambridge, MA United States, May 2022.

Walters, Lisa (2022). “Freedom, Politics and Procreative Matter: Milton and Cavendish. Margaret Cavendish and John Milton Rethinking Seventeenth-Century Literature and Culture, Newark, NJ United States, 11-12 February 2022.

Walters, Lisa (2021). Worldmaking, poverty and the reception of Margaret Cavendish. Literature and Reception Studies: Approaches, Models, Practices 2021, Shanghai University of Finance and Economics, China, 22 - 24 October 2021.

Walters, Lisa (2021). Renaissance popular culture, women and sexual slander. Theorising the Popular Conference, Lille, France, 25 - 26 June 2021.

Walters, Lisa (2021). English Women’s Entrance into Science and Philosophy through Print Culture: The Newcastle Circle and Epicurean Philosophy. SUFE Centre for the Study of Text and Print Culture seminar series, Shanghai, China, 22 June 2021.

Walters, Lisa and Ferrier, Sean (2021). Hamlet and dystopian ethics. European Shakespeare Research Association, National and Kapodistrian University in Athens, Greece, 3 - 6 June 2021.

Walters, Lisa (2020). Atomism: the female experience of science and philosophy. Female Experience in Early Modern England, Auckland, New Zealand, 6 - 7 November 2020.

Walters, Lisa, Moriarty, Claire, Burton, James and Powell, Lewis (2020). Science fiction and philosophy panel. Forum for Philosophy, London, United Kingdom, 1 December 2020.

Newspaper Article

Walters, Lisa (2021, 11 18). Science fiction is philosophy IAI News